Smart, targeted, and equitable public infrastructure investments can generate enormous community benefits—jobs, business opportunities, access to public transportation, and quality affordable housing.

When we invest in infrastructure, we must always ask: Who pays? Who benefits? Who bears the environmental impacts? And, who decides? To ensure everyone benefits from these public investments, everyone—including and especially residents of low-income communities and communities of color—must have a seat at the negotiating table.

The Center for Infrastructure Equity advocates for fair and inclusive policies and provides advocates, public officials, and other stakeholders with the tools, training, and consultation needed to ensure that public investments in infrastructure create economic opportunity and health in all communities.

Highlights

Each short brief describes key challenges and strategies to advance equity within the issue area, provides relevant data points and research findings on the economic benefits of equity, and shares an inspiring example of a win-win solution for equity and the economy already being implemented.

From San Francisco, California to Flint, Michigan, the nation is facing an escalating housing crisis. Skyrocketing rents, inadequate infrastructure and stagnant wages are some of the barriers that are preventing millions of low-income Americans and communities of color from reaching their full potential. Healthy Communities of Opportunity: An Equity Blueprint to Address America’s Housing Challenges weaves together insights from the fields of healthcare, housing and economic security to outline a case for progressive, equity-focused policy.

Oakland, California, faces a serious shortage of affordable housing. Commissioned by the Oakland City Council, A Roadmap Toward Equity analyzes the depth of the problem and presents more than a dozen policy solutions for preventing displacement, increasing the stock of affordable housing, and improving housing habitability for all Oakland residents.

The Piedmont Triad region in North Carolina—covering 12 counties and home to the cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point—is a growing region whose demographics are rapidly changing. Communities of color are driving growth, and have increased from 20 to 33 percent of the population since 1980. Ensuring its diverse residents can participate in the regional economy and contribute to stronger job growth and broadly shared prosperity is critical for the region’s future. Growing good jobs, investing in its workforce, and infusing economic inclusion into economic development and growth strategies are promising strategies. Download the profile and summary.

The Pine Ridge reservation, home of Oglala Lakota people, sits within a broader regional economic context whose primary sectors include tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, and retail.1 The Pine Ridge Reservation and the Rapid City Metropolitan area are interdependent economies that, to date, channel many economic benefits off-reservation. This Equity and Opportunity Assessment identifies key strategies to create greater vibrancy and equity in reservation-based economic activity&mdash;to increase prosperity and quality of life for both the Oglala Lakota people and the region as a whole.